Sun-Times Media Group, Inc.

Jeremy Halbreich is the CEO of Sun-Times Media Group, Inc..

Sun-Times Media Group is a newspaper publisher whose assets include the Chicago Sun-Times and many community newspapers in the Chicago area.

The company was known as Hollinger International Inc. until July 17, 2006, when the name was changed to Sun-Times Media Group. Its ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange became SVN. The name was changed following several years of management shake-ups, all the result of allegations of financial mismanagement involving former chairman Conrad Black.

In November 2003, Black was forced to resign from the company due to a scandal in which he and other senior company executives allegedly gave themselves $84 million in "non-competition" payments in the course of selling some of the newspapers the company had owned. In 2005 Black was charged with defrauding the company and using company funds to pay for a Park Avenue apartment and a birthday party for his wife, the conservative writer Barbara Amiel Black.

When the payments first came to light, Black wrote in an email: "I will take on the task of hosing down shareholders who need it as a matter of some priority."

On July 13, 2007, Black was was found guilty of three counts of mail fraud and a single count of obstruction of justice by a Chicago jury. He was cleared of nine other counts. The obstruction of justice charge resulted from Black removing boxes from his Toronto office ahead of the trial, a sight caught on the office's security cameras and shown to jurors.

Black, also known as Lord Black of Crossharbour, was born Canadian but became a British citizen when he was offered the peerage which made him a British lord. At its peak, his net worth was estimated at more than $400 million. At age 14, he was expelled from a Toronto private school for stealing copies of coming exams and selling them to his fellow students. During the 1980's and 90's, he built a media empire that at one time was the third-largest newspaper company in the world by circulation. He populated his board of directors with prominent conservatives including Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle. Beginning in 1998, he sold off most of Hollinger International's North American newspapers, which led to the charges brought against him in 2005 and his subsequent conviction.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the United States attorney who prosecuted him, said of Black that "He's now a convicted felon, convicted of very serious fraud charges and convicted of obstructing justice. And I'll leave it at that."

Black created a convoluted ownership structure for the company. Hollinger Inc., which is a separate, publicly traded company in Canada, is the controlling shareholder of Sun-Times Media Group. Hollinger Inc. holds an 19.7 percent equity stake, which carries a 70.1 percent voting interest. This is due to the fact that Hollinger Inc.’s shareholding in Sun-Times includes a combination of Class A shares (the shares that trade on the NYSE), with one vote per share, and Class B Shares, which have 10 votes per share. The Class B shares do not trade on the NYSE, and the super-voting rights cannot be transferred unless they are acquired through the purchase of Hollinger Inc. in its entirety.

As a result of the Conrad Black imbroglio, the company sold off major assets in 2004. On July 30, 2004, the company sold the Telegraph Group, its UK newspaper division which included The Daily Telegraph. And on December 15, 2004, the company sold The Jerusalem Post and related Israeli publications.

The Sun-Times Media Group filed for bankruptcy protection on March 31, 2009. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is intended to reorganize operations, settle a tax liability and make the company fit for a buyer. Chairman Jeremy Halbreich said the filing was essential for the company "to re-establish itself as a self-sustaining, profitable operation."

The company has one major creditor -- the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has said Sun-Times Media Group owes the government up to $608 million in back taxes and penalties from past business practices by its former controlling owner, Conrad Black, now in prison for fraud. While Sun-Times Media Group has no bank debt, the IRS debt has prevented the company from raising new capital.

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